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Despite restrictions on lending and higher taxes for selling a home, demand for housing in China has no end. This housing bubble is becoming a difficult one to pop. Even for Beijing.

Real estate prices extended their rally in 62 out of 70 Chinese cities last month, with first-tier cities leading the gains, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday. The government hast been trying to put the brakes on this market for more than a year now. This month, it introduced a new tax for home transactions that is expected to eat into March's data from the NBS. Until now, China's housing market cannot be stopped.

Part of the reason is rising incomes. Another reason is Chinese upper middle class use real estate as a store of value. Equities in China are too volatile. Real estate is a savings account, and this is one saving nation.

In January, Shenzhen saw the biggest gain of 2.2% with Beijing second at 2.1% and Guangzhou third after a 2% jump. February was also a holiday month, so many house hunters had time off to make a deal on a new property.

Compared to February 2013, China's new home prices rose as much as 8.2%. In January, the largest increase was 4.7%.

The sales prices of used residential buildings rose in 66 out of the 70 cities profiled, but the highest increase was 2.2%.

In February 2012, sales prices of second-hand residential buildings decreased in 18 cities, while that of 3 cities remained at the same level.

Looking at the NBS' sales price index is nearly impossible to find a city where values have not risen on the month. There's one: Wenzhou, a city of 3 million in Eastern China. On a yearly basis, prices of new homes are down in Hangzhou, Ningbo, Qindao, Haikou, Wenzhou again, Jinhua, Guilin and Dali.

The real estate and banking heavy iShares FTSE China (FXI) exchange traded fund is down 1.55% today due mostly to news out of Europe regarding the $13 billion Cyprus bailout. The ETF is down over 8% year-to-date, making China an underperformer of the MSCI Emerging Markets index yet again.